A senior official from the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged local fishermen yesterday to abide by international "rules of the game" to avert unnecessary troubles and perils.
Lin Sung-huan, director of the ministry's East-Asian and Pacific Affairs Department, made the call after five Taiwanese fishing boats were caught by Philippine military authorities last year on charges of poaching inside the Philippines' 370.4km economic zone.
The five bluefin tuna fishing boats from Tungkang and Liuchiu in Pingtung County were caught between March 26 and May 1 last year, and have since been impounded by Philippine authorities.
Only eight of the 38-crewmembers aboard the five ships were released on bail and returned home last week. The remaining crewmen, including sailors from Taiwan, China and Indonesia, are still being detained.
Lin said the representative office in Manila has been negotiating with Philippine authorities for an early resolution of the matter so that the impounded boats and their crews can be released soon. In the meantime, Lin said, it is the ministry's hope that fishermen can understand that times have changed and so has the general international environment.
Nowadays, all fishermen must abide by the international rules when operating in the economic waters of other countries, he said. "If you want to fish in a country's waters, you must faithfully follow its rules. You must apply for its fishing licenses with its legal agencies and pay license fees accordingly," Lin explained. He said that some Taiwanese fishermen harbor a misguided belief in the illicit alternative practices presented by foreign brokerage houses, thus inviting unnecessary troubles and incurring unnecessary financial losses. In many cases, Lin said, local fishermen might fetch fake fishing licenses through brokerage firms.
The Philippine government unveiled a new fishery law in 1998 and revoked its previous agreement with Taiwan on the demarcation of their overlapping or adjoining economic waters. It has since strictly penalized foreign fishing boats intruding into its economic waters.
Under the terms of the Philippine law, intruding fishing vessels -as well as their fishing gear and catch- will all be confiscated, with the shipowners being required to pay a fine of US$50,000 for each boat. Moreover they must pay additional fines of up to thousands of US dollars to Philippine immigration authorities. Lin said the delay in the settlement of the disputes over the five Taiwanese fishing boats could partly be attributed to the vessel owners' reluctance to pay fines and their desire to take back their vessels. Some of them have turned to private Philippine fishery brokers for assistance in the hopes of paying smaller fines and ensuring the return of their ships, he said.
Such efforts, however, have proved to be largely unsuccessful. So far, only the eight crewmen of the Chihmanhsiang No. 66 were released and returned home over the weekend. None of them would divulge how much bail they had paid to Philippine authorities. Lin said the government has set up an interdisciplinary task force, with officials from the ministry the Fishery Administration under the Council of Agriculture to assist shipowners in resolving the disputes.
On Monday, the task force held a meeting in Tunkang with Pingtung County Magistrate Su Chia-chuan, senior executives of the Tungkang Fishermen's Association and family members of the detained crewmen also attending the meeting. "We reached a consensus with family members of the detained crew members during the meeting that they will fully entrust the matter to the ministry to solve the case through official channels," Lin said.